Friday, June 30

Not much to say today, but as always I will think of something. *grin* Yesterday and today have been extremely hot here in LL, MO - in the mid 90's. Yesterday afternoon I went out and jumped into the pool. Boy did THAT feel good, although I thought the water was cold. When the kids jumped in a few minutes later, my daughter said, "This is NICE!" Crazy kid. *smile*

I called CenturyTel this morning and asked about ISDN since we can't get DSL. She immediately said "No!". I asked her why not and she told me, "Because we don't offer that". I told her, "Yes you do, I saw it on your web site under 'business'". She told me to hold on a minute while she checked. She came back a couple of minutes later and told me it wasn't available in my area. No kidding, nothing is. *sigh* I asked how much it would be if we could get it and she told me $500 a month. YIKES!

Called in my prescription to the pharmacy this morning, but when we got there to pick it up, it wasn't ready. The doctor hadn't called them back to okay it yet. That's okay, because I have enough to get me through until Sunday (Saturday's my last available dose), and it's one I can do without until Monday. Actually, I think the pharmacy is open tomorrow, so theoretically we could drive in tomorrow and pick it up if we want to.

While we were in town we stopped at Sonic and had breakfast. That was good. Then we swung by the store to check on my prescription, pick up a couple of things, swung by the cigarette store to get me enough to get through the weekend. When I run out of cigarettes after this weekend, if my wife has been able to stay not smoking after today, I will quit on Monday, or sooner if the smokes we bought today are gone. Once she quits (starting tomorrow), I will only smoke outside, to help her not be so tempted.

We've brought a few more things that we were storing in the craft room outside, in to the house today. Some movies, a few computer CD's, and miscellaneous stuff. That was done while I was napping. Now my wife and daughter are napping, and my son is in the other room watching TV. All the cats are lazing around and sleeping too. The chickens are outside roaming around though, but I'm sure some of them are just laying around as well. That's all I've got to say.

Wednesday, June 28

Got a few things done today, like cutting the excess blue liner off the sides of the pool, and hanging them on the fence to the side of the pool. Reason? I've heard that horse-flies are attracted to the color blue. The inside of the pool is blue, and during the latter month or so of summer, the horse-flies just won't leave you alone when you're in the pool. We figured that if they are indeed attracted to blue, then perhaps we can get them to buzz around the blue pieces on the fence and leave the swimmers alone. We we get the money, we'll buy something called "tangelfoot" to get them stuck to it and die. Just like those sticky fly strips you hang from the rafters and/or ceiling. Worth a shot anyway. *smile* During the whole session of cutting the excess stuff off the pool, I also pulled some weed because they're looking a bit unruly. I can only mow so close to the pool because of the wood framing that's on the ground around it. I was going to go back out and cut and pull the weeds, grass, and tree saplings, but I was getting tired. I came in and took a nap once I cooled off, and slept until 4 p.m. Came out to the livingroom and dozed off again until 5:30. Guess I was more tired than I thought. *smile*

Not too long ago, I was outside playing frisbee with the kids again. That was fun, even if it was only for 20-30 minutes. The heat was definitely getting to me though. I noticed at one point that every so often when I'd be waiting for the frisbee to come my way, I'd start getting dizzy, and sometimes I'd start seeing "tracers" of light cause by the sun hitting my sun glasses just right, just like when I tripping. *evil grin* Haven't done that for about 23 years though, but I still remember. *grin*

When I woke up the second time the movie was still on, it's a good one and the second time in as many days as we've watched it. It's called "Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl", with Johnny Depp.

Tuesday, June 27

Got some yard work done this afternoon, shortly before it started thundering and lightening. We moved a bunch of rocks that were along the fence line of the small pasture, on the outside, over to the garden area. At one point my daughter said, "Now THIS is good farm work. Good training!" The kids helped me put them in the wagon, and we got two loads over to the area (just inside the green pole on the upper-right side of the picture. Rain will do something with the rocks, I'm sure. Maybe put them along the outside of the chicken-wire fence I put around the garden... eventually. Before it rained though, I ran out and put the mower in the shed. We wanted to get the frisbee tossed around before it rained really hard, so we went out in the back yard and tossed it between three of us (me and the kids). I told the kids we'd get wet because it was raining when we headed out the door, but they assured me they didn't mind getting wet. It was fun. We played until the thunder and lightening got louder and more frequent. I used the excuse of coming in to unplug the phone-line from the computer, to end the game. *grin*

We also went into town and got a couple of bags of chopped corn for the chickens and ducks, and lunch as breakfast for us. Also got some trash burned, after the kids cleaned out the van like I asked.

The kids worked on science and math for a little over an hour this afternoon. Actually, my son is doing it again.

Monday, June 26

This is the wall-hanging that we had folded and put in our bedroom when we were preparing to move. Since we have no idea when or if that's going to happen, we decided to at least make the livingroom feel more "homey". And it does, just by putting that up.

I also got the excess screen cut off the window where we put the new fan, which works pretty well. Best in the evening though. When the sun starts shining on that window, we turn the setting on both fans to 'exhaust'. When that window's no longer be bathed in the hot sun we change the settings back to 'intake' to bring cool air in. Speaking of cool, it was pretty cool in the house this morning. I even felt I had to put on my heavy, gray pull-over on.

This morning didn't start out the greatest. I overslept AGAIN :-( Don't even remember my daughter waking me up at 7 am. She swears she did, and I believe her because I know I'm a very deep sleeper. I woke-up with a start at about 8:30 and came out to the livingroom. That's when the first thing she said to me was, "My computer won't work!". I had just barely woken-up, not something I like to hear right away, if you know what I mean. What she meant was that the connection sharing wasn't working, so she couldn't go on-line even if our computer was connected to the Internet, and it was. I messed around all frikkin' day, and couldn't get the problem resolved. This evening I did manage to get it to work, once I figured out it was because I installed the latest Zone Alarm update. She said just a little while ago, "See? I knew you'd get it fixed eventually". She's so sweet :-)

We also took the exercise machine upstairs and also took the boom-box up. The one that can play CD's as well as radio.

Before the window screen and computer fix, we went into town and got a newspaper, a 3 liter bottle of cola, and a bag of M&M's.

Saturday, June 24

Just got off the phone with a few companies. The first one I called was to find out who the hell enrolled me in their prescription drug plan without my knowledge. They told me Medicare did and that I needed to call them and dis-enroll. Called Medicare, only to be told they didn't show me as having any coverage. I asked them why not, I've been enrolled with my current one since May 1st. I had already dis-enrolled from the first one Medicare enrolled me in (Well-care) and called them then to tell them, and now I've apparently been auto-enrolled in another one I don't need. He told me to just disregard anything I get from other companies since I already have an active account with another. I said, "But I had this one before you enrolled me in Humana. If you're not going to have one on your system, you're just going to keep enrolling me in others. How LONG does it take for you people to have updated records?"

He said, "As long as you have an active account with in a drug plan, disregard everything else, it'll eventually work itself out". What could I say but okay?

Called my current, active providers to make sure it was still active, and it was, which I figured since I've used their card to get prescriptions filled. Although, my current providers don't have their records totally clear either. They show my account as being backdated to be active as of Jan. 1, 2006, even though I didn't turn in an application until April 2006 and that was activated as of May 1st. According to them though, I could've been using it since January, they just never told me! We could've saved a shitload of money between Jan and May. *sigh* So, as far as I know, everything is cool, until I start having problems, which I hope I won't and don't anticipate any. Anybody else having these same issues?

I hate bureaucracy!!

On the 'good news' side, a couple came and looked at the house and property today. They seemed very impressed and said a few times how beautiful the place was. Loved the ponds, pool, woods, and the fact that we only use 2 cords of wood per year. He told us that when he lived in South Dakota that he went through a cord a week! Yikes! So he was impressed to say the least. So who knows, perhaps they'll make an offer.

I just could NOT sleep. Just laying there thinking, and thinking, and thinking some more. It's quite annoying actually. I even took my bedtime snooze pill that generally helps me get to sleep. But this morning... no go. Whah!

Thinking about stuff to do...

Like, bring the giant wall-hanging of the bird with long multi-colored tail feathers in, and hang it on the wall of course (what's that called?). Oh yeah, a Peacock! Trying to decide whether I want to use duct tape somehow. Or if I'd rather go the easy route and use staples. I'm leaning towards the tape, which is actually painter's tape, not the duct kind. That's new-this-year paint on that wall, don't really want to fill it full of holes just yet. Ya know?

Also thinking about trying to figure out where the break(if there is one, and it's not just that the switches themselves crapped out)in the wires from the switches in the kid's closet to a junction box in the attic is, again. I'm hoping it's just the switches, but I'm pretty sure it's the wires. Can't remember if I checked the wires, or just the switches last time. Brain fart!

Want to take the exercise machine up to the upstairs room, and a boom box to listen to while we're working out. May to that today, haven't decided, but think we will.

Considering putting the chicken-wire fence around Rain's garden spot. Wasn't going to do that before, since we planned on moving... but now...?

There ya go, that's why I couldn't sleep. Besides just not being sleepy.

Thursday, June 22

Just got off the phone with the supervisor of the people who hook-up houses to the DSL connection huts. Long story short, as far as he knows right now, there are no plans to put more "huts" in this area. He said he pass the email on up the line, but has no idea if it'll get DSL to us. At least that's something, I guess. And being the diplomat, he told me he completely understands my frustration cuz "it sounds like you're getting the run around".

"Yeah!"

I asked him, why did a technician tell me DSL *is* available, and when I called customer service told me it wasn't? When I told them a tech. said we could, I was told by CS that the techs. don't have any way TO check. I called tech.support back, and *they* told me they can check, but that CS had the latest updates, that there's wasn't as accurate. It's a computerized company!! They SHOULD be able to distribute the updates pretty evenly and quickly. *GRR* Anyway, looks like no DSL for who knows how long :-(

On an "up" note, we got our twin-fan window fan. Had only been on a couple of ours when it started thundering, raining, and lightening. The the power went out for about half and hour. So, since it's not as hot as it has been outside, it's hard to tell just how well the fan will work when it's in the 90's (F*).

Wednesday, June 21

Once again, I didn't get much done today. We did get the screen on the window behind the computer desk. Actually, in front of it if you're looking at the the back of the desk. So far it's hard to tell if that's helping much. Tomorrow we're going to go to Lowes and price, and probably get, a window fan for that window, to draw the hot air from the open door at the other end of the house. Hope then I won't be sitting here sweating while doing email. It's 90*F in the house right now.

Also got one load of laundry out of the dryer and put away (well, our clothes anyway, the kids still need to put theirs away), and another load is done and needs to be folded and put away. That won't take long, it's just some towels.

Chatted with one friend that used to be on my e-group, then talked to another one who still is. The one that is, is also friends with another friend we haven't been able to get a hold of using the computer's technology (email, IM). She said she wasn't able to get news from her either :-(

Didn't even know it was the Summer Solstice until someone mentioned it. Therefore, HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE -or- THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER, everybody! :-)

Tuesday, June 20

Wowzers! Is it HOT!! I was sitting in the living room on the sofa watching TV. I thought to myself, "Self, there's GOT to be a way to cool off". Then the smart me said, "Uh, yeah! You've got a swimming pool outside!" *grin* So, I went out there and turned the pump on to recirculate and filter the bugs out (or at least off the top). While I was out there I skimmed as many as I could reach with the blue skimmer on the end of the pole. Once that was done, I came in, put my suit on, grabbed a towel off of the shelf in the bathroom, and headed for the pool. Once there, I dove in. Let me tell ya, it felt GREAT! *smile* While in the water I walked around with the skimmer a bit more and scooped more dead bugs, and more, and more. I realized that walking around was stirring the ones that had sank, from the bottom, so I dove under and scooped the bottom bugs. Got A LOT more. That's pretty much been all the excitement for the day. Too danged hot to do much else. Cheers!

Monday, June 19

Called Centurytel this afternoon to see if we could get DSL service yet. Of course they told me no. Not long after I hung-up the phone, the kids told me we had 3 packages from the UPS guy. One was vitamins, another was a prescription, and yet one more was the CORRECT DSL modem they didn't send me last week. I called them last week to tell them I got the wrong modem. That's when they told me we didn't get service in our area and our request had been canceled. She also told me she'd be sending us a return-postage label to return the incorrect modem, and that we'd be getting a letter saying that we've been canceled, blah, blah, blah. So I had to call them back and ask for a second postage-return label. *grin* While I had the customer service guy on the phone, I asked him if they (Centurytel) had a maintenance schedule for when and where they get DSL service going. He told me they did. I asked him why nobody will tell me the schedule then. Of course he told me that the schedule is always changing, but they'd put a flyer in our mail box when it became available and we could call and get it all set up. I said, "Yeah! That's what they told me 2 YEARS AGO!" He then proceeded to tell me that it takes 6 people from the area to call and request it, that that's what gets them to investigate putting it in the area. I told him that just across the highway (which is exactly 3.5 miles from our house) they have it. No, wait, that was the first guy I talked to. Sorry. Anyway, the first guy told me that the extra half mile would put it out of range. Back to the 2nd guy. I told him of a family I know in Kentucky that has it and there are only 4 families in that area, but they have it. He told me then I need to get four of my neighbors to call them, and that would more than likely get them motivated. So we're thinking of making some flyers and sticking them in the mail boxes around here telling them to call and say they want it, even if they don't, so that we can get it. *smile* Back before Centurytel became the phone service out here, it was Verizon. Maybe we should call Verizon and see if they can motivate Centurytel for us. Don't know, just thinking out loud. :-)

We went grocery shopping earlier this afternoon. I just got through burning the trash, and now we're just hanging out. It's SO HOT outside! We still haven't put the A/C in the window... still trying to save money. *sigh* Having to decide between health and saving money just sucks!

Oh yeah, and last night I took the "for sale" site for our house down. My wife called the realtor this morning and told her to cancel our contract. So now, we're thinking if nobody has shown any interest by the end of the month of June, we'll be getting the bankruptcy paperwork started. *sigh*

Saturday, June 17

The day a radio personality mentioned on the program that June 6, 2006 was also 6, 6, 06, aka: 666. I thought it would be funny to ask everyone if they had a celebratory ritual for the day. Then I thought, "No, because them some people would assume that those who did were "devil worshipers", and therefore evil. LOL." You've got the whole Christian thing about "the mark of the beast" being 666. And now just about everyone, at least in the united States has a social security number. There are bar codes on just about every product nowadays. You've got databases with millions of sample of DNA. There's also the RFID tags on products and whatnot. Then there's the RFID implant, and they've probably got the RFID injection. At first it's going to be "illegal" aliens, Muslims, prison inmates/detainees, Pagans. some Christians deemed to be "unworthy", and who knows who else, according to the Bush regime. People who're dark, black to Asian-skinned, the elderly, and autistics will get tags, like dogs and other animals. Of course there's the whole NAIS thing. How long do you think it'll be before it's mandatory for *everybody*? You know the government and big business are pushing for tagging every man, woman, child and all other animals. So who is this "devil" so many people think is in human form? There's been a few presidents accused over the years. Remember Reagan, he was allegedly the "anti-Christ" for a while, and may still be to a lot of people. But if you want *my* opinion... I believe that it's George W. Bush and Blair in England who're BOTH anti-christs. I suppose they're are many politician and religious "leaders" who fit the profile. And the latest that *all* government agencies (from elementary schools on up) either did or is about to have THEE largest practice drill in case Marshall Law needs to be instituted. PRACTICING. They're preparing, they say, for "another '9-11' event". Will that be staged too? What about intentional "bird flu"? You know they're building another prison close to Guantanamo, and the government contracted a company (Haliburton?) to build that one and then several *within* the u.S. borders? That's why *I've* concluded that those in the Bush administration are *all* "in league with 'the devil'", so-to-speak. There doesn't need to be a "hell" 'out there', because our government, and governments around the world are creating it *right here* on Earth! Be worried.

Rambleman

P.S. Please, no comments about "paranoia". I told about actual, real, news stories I've seen over the last few years, so I don't want to hear it. I said please.

Not a lot going on today. It looks like it's going to rain, which is a good thing because everything is SO dry.

We made an unscheduled trip into town to get Rain some Benedryl to help with the eye-itching due to the wasp sting a couple of days ago. She took one as soon as we got back into the van. She said it helped pretty quickly.

Then we did one last hurrah before we completely stop using any credit card except for absolute emergencies (like E.R. visits or something), because of tomorrow being "Father's Day", by going to Pizza Hut. I didn't realize until they brought the bill that it's actually more expensive if the four of us get the buffet. For some reason, I always thought the buffet was so you'd get more for less. Rain told me that the buffet offers more choices, so that's why it costs more. What was I thinking? *smile* Speaking of the bill, do they really think that once a child goes over the magic age of 12 that they're suddenly going to eat as much as a full-grown adult, so they have to charge accordingly? So, let's see... you can join the military and shoot people at 16, but for just about everything else you're considered a "child" if you're under 18, unless you're at a restaurant or amusement park? What kind of frikkin' sense does THAT make? None! IMO! Anyway...

Got a couple loads of laundry done yesterday. I see that the kids brought their full laundry basket out this afternoon. Sigh :-) Most of it is towels from their several trips into the pool and back, having gotten new towels each time. Kids! :-)

Friday, June 16

What I am trying instead of enlarging the size of the writing, is trying a new font -Verdana. It appears, at least in email, that 12pt is a good size. And so far it looks good on this page :-) Not sure how it's going to look once it's posted to my blog sites.

It's going to be a hot one today, at least according to Weatherbug - in the 90's. We still don't have the air-conditioner installed in the living room window because we're seeing how long we can avoid doing it. The goal is to avoid electric bills that are over $100 per month. Although running the swimming pool pump might put it over that anyway. However, we don't run the pool pump 24/7, so the bill shouldn't be too high.

Today I need to do some laundry. The hamper in our bedroom is full. I had planned on getting up this morning and starting the laundry as soon as I got back in from feeding the birds. But I haven't started any yet. Had email, don't ya know? :-)

One other thing I want to get done today is bringing the 2 push-mowers out of the small shed and hosing them down. We haven't been able to get them started in at least a couple of years, which hasn't been necessary anyway because we have the riding mower. Earlier in the week someone on FreeCycle asked if anyone had any mowers that didn't run. We responded, and someone will be coming tomorrow to pick them up, so I would like them to at least not look AS grungy.

Added some wording to our "home4sale" page, saying that as of next week if the house isn't sold, we'll more than likely be taking it off the market. That after all the allowances, the price paid would be only $86,900 instead of $89,900, so if you want to buy it, don't wait much longer. Don't really expect that to help much, because it's already been on the market for a year, and nothing we've done as helped so far.

Thursday, June 15

It looks like we're not going to get DSL after all. Called CenturyTel this morning to tell them they sent me the wrong modem/router, and didn't send the wireless connector for our notebook computer. She looked at the records and then told me that the order has been CANCELED :-( I asked why, and she told me that we're still not close enough to a junction box, that when they (customer service) looks at the screen and it says you are able to get it, it then goes on to processing and they delve deeper into the situation. Once they did that, they concluded that we can't get it. I told them that I know of at least one person on the other side of the highway, about 2 miles from here as the crow flies, has DSL. She tried to get a hold of the maintenance people to find out when it may be scheduled to get us hooked-up, but they weren't answering their phone. So she left a message and they'll either call her or us with more information. Meanwhile, they're sending me a return postage label for the modem I got, so I can send it back. I'm totally frustrated with them, and really, REALLY disappointed. I will be calling them every week though to ask if it's available yet. Oh yeah, she said that the maintenance guy that was going to come on Monday, won't be coming, and that they sent out the cancellation notice yesterday.

In other news, Rain and I have decided that if the house doesn't sell by the time the contract is up with the current realtor, we're going to have to take the house off the market and look into bankruptcy. We've got credit card debt of $18K, are having to spend $150-$200/month for gas for the van, and just can't keep making the payments with the income we get for my disability :-( So, if you'd like to buy our house, do it quickly, or hold your peace for a while.

Wednesday, June 14

Just got back from the doctor's office a little bit ago. He was the replacement for the doctor we saw who wrote our last prescription for LDN. He only goes to the Buffalo clinic once a week, and the rest of the time the nurse practitioner sees the patients. We already don't like him, and will be calling around to find a new doctor, hopefully one who's a lot more open to alternative medicine, and one who LISTENS to his/her patients. We told him, or his nurse rather, that we had an appointment to see a new neurologist next month. Anyway, he said he would write another prescription only for 30 days "because it might not be compatible with the new doctor's regimen for you". We told him that that the new doctors "regimen" was probably going to be to try and get me on the Copaxone.Rebif.Avonex.Betaseron (C.R.A.BS - injectable medications with terrible side-effects on me) that I would NOT take. I've been taking LDN for a little over a year with NO side-effects, and haven't had an exacerbation since being on it. However, before he even agreed to write the 30 prescription he said, "This was a fad going around a while back". Yeah, a "fad" that has been WORKING! GRR!!

Then we stopped at Mickey's and spent $8 on the 4 of us, and came home.

Woke-up at a little after 7 this morning to find I was the only one still in bed. Knowing that it's NOT my wife's week to get up early, I got up. That's when I found out that not only had she gotten up, but she went outside to feed and water the chickens with my daughter. After a few minutes, I put my boots on and got ready to go out, but they were already on their way back in. I guess the reason my DW was up was because one of the cats, Latte', had figured out that if he sits outside the bedroom window and meows long enough that someone will get up. Since my DW doesn't sleep very deeply, she was the one that got up. It was close to 7 at that point, so she stayed up, and had planned on just letting me sleep. Well, knowing it's my turn this week, I got up. When she went back to bed at 7:30, I checked with my DD to find out if it would be okay for me to lay back down, she said it was, so I did. Unfortunately, I couldn't get back to sleep, and here I am.

Not a lot going on at the moment. I have an appointment with my primary care physician this afternoon. Oh, don't worry, I'm not sick or having any unusual problems. I need a prescription renewed because the one that the doctor before him wrote me has expired. I found that out when I called in the prescription to the pharmacy, and they told me they couldn't fill it because it had been over a year (not much) since it was first written. Apparently according to federal law the pharmacy can't do any refills if the original 'scription in more than 1 year old. When I called the nurse practitioner to do the renewal, she said that she can't do it, that a doctor has to. Well, since he's new there and hasn't seen me, he wants me to come in and talk about it before he writes the prescription.

Monday, June 12

WE'RE GETTING DSL!! I can't believe it. I just about had a heart attack when she said, "Yes, you can get it". But at first I was worried. Because when I first called and asked if we could get it at our phone #, she looked it up and said, "No, my records say that it's not available in your area". My heart sank :-( I had other information though, so I asked, "Then is the on-line checker messed-up or something. Because it said that it IS available, but that I need to contact you because I just need some sort of check". She told me to hold on and she'll check one more thing. I waited. She came back and said that indeed we COULD get it,"my other records must not've been updated". I told her that I know when it became available... LAST WEEK I saw phone men working at the pole. She just said that that's gotta be it, cause it had to be within that last week or so. I am SO HAPPY that my assumption of what they were doing was right. *grin* But I've been worrying all day because I just could *not* understand how we could now get it because we only have the one phone line, and they haven't installed anything new. Finally, after DD got off our computer, I Googled "How does DSL work?" Come to find out that the normal phone line connection is just for "voice" communication and runs at a lower frequency than "data", i.e. Internet. It's the DSL modem that transfers data at a higher frequency, thus allowing the one line to be split and kept separate. I did not know that. Fascinating! *smile* So, come the day after father's day, we'll have high-speed Internet. I'm psyched! We're keeping it secret from the kids. They won't be expecting it. My DD is going to freak at how fast she get download/watch videos. Oh no!

Sunday, June 11

I started to write something earlier, but changed my mind when I started thinking how uneventful my life really is. Started thinking I have nothing to say that I would think anyone would want to read. Those of you who've known me for a while, know that I've said that many times. I've gotten much encouragement to write even if I don't personally think it's interesting. What made me think about it today was, a friend wrote to me and told me all these things she, her kids, and her husband had plans for and do, and I thought, "Gosh, that would be so much better to write about than basically nothing", so I deleted what I had wrote, which was only a couple of sentences, and closed my program. Of course I talked to my wife about how I felt, and she comforted me by telling me that our life is not "boring", it's just a different lifestyle than people's who live in or close to cities. She also reminded me that it would be extremely expensive for us to be on the go all the time since we have a van that gets not much better than 10 miles to the gallon. As it is, if we have to do into town, any town, more than a couple of times a week, by the end of the month we've spent $150-$200. So obviously we try not to go into more than we really have to, which to some people would seem boring, staying at home so much. To be honest though, even when I lived in a city, I didn't go all the time. Sometimes on the weekend I would go to a nightclub, to a park, to the mountains, or to the mall. And that was when I was before I got married. Once married, I didn't need to go to those places as often, because I was no longer looking for a partner. Once I met Rain, we went to the park some times, but never to nightclubs because she just never was into them, and the only reason I had ever gone was to find a girlfriend (never did). In fact, I met Rain at the place we both worked. Had I not smoked then, I probably wouldn't have talked to her enough to get to know her and ask her out, when we were on break. Anyway...

For the chance at more money, we play the lottery twice a week, and Rain enters sweepstakes on-line. Plus we're also trying the ad route, which hasn't helped because nobody, so far, has clicked on the ad and then bought something. And because I read the Google Ad-Sense EULA and in it is says, "If You have elected to receive content or Site-based Ads, You further agree not to display on any Serviced Page any non-Google content-targeted advertisement(s).", I took that to mean I couldn't have Ad-sense AND ads for other companies on the same page/site. Am I correct?

Something else we've applied for is a free car if we agree to drive it 50 miles per day with it ad-wrapped. So far we haven't heard back. Rain is hoping that if we ever qualify, that we get to drive a new Volkswagen Beatle, like this one . *smile* At least that way we would be nicer to the environment by saving gas. Actually, any car would be suitable, but this is the one we'd like most because it's one that we would buy if we had the money to do so, because Rain really likes it.

Okay, I suppose I've prattled on long enough. The 2nd game of the NBA championship series is on tonight at 8 PM (central). I have to watch it on the kids' TV because Rain will be watching the season premier of "The 4400" on the USA network :-)

Saturday, June 10

I called CenturyTel to ask if we could now get DSL in our area. He said no. He then told me to call back again in maybe 2 months. I said, "But I a checked on-line this morning and it said we could, but we needed to have some sort of manual check or something done". Then he told me to call another number (1-800-201-4099) and talk to them, that maybe they can look into it. I thanked him, and then called the #. But they're only there Mon-Fri, 9-5. So, I get to try and not think about it over the weekend, and just call Monday. When we went into town the other day and the phone-men were working by the highway, we were wondering if they were installing another DSL box on the tower. So maybe.

The rest of my day was pretty dull. Took a nap because 3-4 hours of sleep just weren't enough. The nap lasted a couple of hours, and felt GOOD. There's a load of laundry, done, in the dryer and another one in the washer. Guess how my evening is going to go. LOL. Also got some trash burned. WOO-HOO!

Ever go to bed and just lay there, knowing you need to get some sleep, but can't doze-off? Well, that's what happened to me last night and again this morning (1:45 am). Very frustrating, sort of. I don't know if it's because:

�I ate too much sugar (I low-carb, usually) this evening,

That I took a 1/2 pill of Provigil about 1 o'clock Friday afternoon,

Or because I checked the availability of DSL in our area and am just too excited to sleep, because according to the on-line checker, we are.

I suppose it could be any one of them, or a combination of them all. Probably the latter.

Well, I'm trying Qumana 3.0 again. I just really like being able to "justify" the paragraphs, which I can't do with Zoundry unless I edit the html manually, and that's kind of a pain. I am pretty good at it though, so it went/goes quick. Another reason I wasn't using Qumana is because there's no way to choose the font size. But you can't in Zoundry either, unless again, you do it manually, paragraph by paragraph. I see with this that you can simply "increase" the font size under the "format" option. I'll be trying that before I send this. I guess I won't. I just checked, and it actually says, "Increase or decrease indent). One other minor thing with Qumana is that you can't add to the dictionary if the spell checker says a word is misspelled. You only have the choice of choosing one of their suggestions, or just leaving it, which I suppose isn't a big deal either. Oops, wrong again. You just can't right-click and add your word, but if you click the checkmark up top, when it flags a word, you can add it to the dictionary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, gimme a break, I just downloaded it a couple of hours ago. *grin*

Friday, June 9

What did we do for fun today? We went to "The Berry Festival" in Buffalo, MO.

It was kind of a chore to actually get the kids to ride any rides, because they wouldn't decide which ones to do. *sigh* But once they went on a few, that we suggested, they had fun. Eldin even drove the bumper cars, twice, by himself and had a BLAST! *smile* Rain and I didn't ride any because we both get nauseous on them :-( Plus we spent $34 dollars that we really couldn't afford to buy the kids arm bands so they could ride any ride as many times as they wanted.

I put a bunch of pictures up on Ramblemanweb for you to look at, if you want. I took pictures of the rides they went on, plus "The Zipper" which we couldn't convince them too, but it sure looked like fun :-)

Thursday, June 8

Got a call from my father in Colorado yesterday morning. He told me that my mother had fallen and broken her hip, and will be having surgery today. Please keep her in your thoughts.

I spent about 3-4 hours riding around on the mower, mowing all the grass that I wanted to mow. Place looks really nice, and I didn't even get a sunburn! :-)

Drove into town to get a few things, and saw some phone repairmen working on a phone-line tower out by the hwy (3 miles from here), and am hoping they're installing another DSL hub. If they are, then that would be a GREAT selling point for this place. I don't think we'd get it, because I think you have to agree to a 1 year subscription (need to look into that more), and we're hoping to NOT be here for another year.

Today I'll be vacuuming the bottom of the pool. Added extra water a few days ago in preparation, so hopefully everything will go well. Last time I tried vacuuming it, the filter basket kept clogging and I kept losing pressure. I cleaned the dead bugs and leaves off the bottom last week, so I'm hoping that solved the clogging issue. *crossing fingers*

Saw on the news this morning that a u.S. senator is going to introduce a bill that will make it a requirement for all persons, men and women, ages 18-42, to serve either 2 years in the military or 2 years of community service. Will let you know what I find out. The report said it was on rense.com

Wednesday, June 7

All we did yesterday was go to Hostetler feed store and get some chicken feed (2 bags). Stopped at Save-A-Lot and bought some meat using our food stamps. Bought 3 gallons of gas for our riding mower, which cost us $8 (ridiculous!). Plus we also went to Sonic and got 4 junior banana splits (yum!). Then we came home, fed the chickens, unloaded the van, and did "the usual", which included playing video games (kids), watching TV (kids and us), and read some email, and I played on changing a few things on my website. Nothing all that exciting, to be honest.

One thing I tried to do was verify a new email addy for yahoogroups, but that just ain't happening because I'm not getting the verification email for some reason. Thought maybe it just took a while, so since I didn't get it last night, thought maybe I'd get it this morning, but as of right now... nothing. The reason I want to be able to post with a new email addy is because I can set-up my blogspot blog to automatically send my entries to one email addy. So, I was thinking that I would have it sent to the email I can't verify, and then have that addy forward it to my blog group on yahoogroups and then to the other groups I usually post it too. Maybe I'll get that verification email later (crossing fingers) and can then test it.

When we were out the other day doing some grocery shopping, we had planned on stopping then and getting gas in the mower's gas can, but we decided that we would just siphon some gas out of the Intrepid because it has a half tank of gas, and that would save us some money. Well, I couldn't get the siphoning hose into the tank TO siphon it, and that's why we had to get some gas yesterday. Today I'll be doing some mowing. Woo-hoo! :-)

Tuesday, June 6

Just got through reading this book a few days ago. Good book! It's about something that some people saw one night in Elko Nevada. They didn't know what they had saw that night because the government had abducted them just afterwards and brainwashed them by implanting false memories of that night. They were given memories that were of an ordinary day in the Tranquility Motel. Unfortunately for the government, the brainwashing slowly developed holes and they slowly but surely started remembering. Some were having fugues where they went in to a trance and wigged-out and ran, only to wake-up not knowing why they ended up where they were or why. Others became obsessed with images, like the moon. Others got weird red, raised circle-scars on their palms whenever they saw, heard, or felt something strange happening, only to find out they had special powers like telekinesis, healing abilities, etc. These abilities and circles weren't from the government, but from something they had touched but had no recollection of touching. In the end they all found out that what they had seen was a space ship. Those with the abilities had been in the ship and touched the top of the suspended animation capsule that had a dying alien in it. Because the alien knew it was about to die, he put his hands up against the top of the capsule when the others touched it and passed on the powers to those people. He wanted, and did, complete the mission that took 30,000 years of space travel to accomplish. Unfortunately, because all the occupants in the ship died, they couldn't send/get a report back to their home to let them know. Of course the government didn't know how these people got their powers and assumed the aliens had somehow possessed them and wanted to keep the world safe from further possession by keeping it all a secret.

Monday, June 5

I don't know if there's another way for people to subscribe to my blog, at least not that I could find, so I created a yahoogroup(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theramblemansblog/) for those who *aren't* on an email list that I post it to, or don't have a way to get an RSS reader to download it. Or for those who are on an email list with me, but don't have time to read all the messages, but still want to read what I write in my blog. You can find the link on the left of my blog at http://ramblemans.blogspot.com/ under "Links", or go scroll down until you see the yahoogroup button with writing underneath it, and click. You'll be *automatically* subscribed, just so you know. My blog entries will be automatically posted to the group from blogspot. If you want to be able to see the links as written in the blog, you probably shouldn't set your membership to 'digest'. When you do that, you get messages in plain text.

Sunday, June 4

Went to a park in Springfield today and played (well, the kids played the most, but I did swing), and ate lunch. We brought chips and cookies, and the other family brought drinks for the kids and stuff for making sandwiches. We had a great time, even though it was raining when we got there. But the rain did let up not long after we all arrived. Did lots of talking and hugging. After the park, we all went to Bass Pro Shop and looked around. Got to see snakes, fish, turtles, life-size displays of bears and deer. Also got to see some ducks swimming in the indoor stream, as well as fish swimming in the same stream It was pretty cool. But there were just SO MANY people. We're country people, we're not used to large crowds. *smile* But we survived. Wish I would've remembered to take my camera. I always forget. *sigh* The sun was shining on the way home, and when I tried to put some sunglasses on, they broke. Rain offered to let me wear hers, but I declined, until about halfway home when my eyes started getting tired and I was getting sleepy. Once I put the glasses on I was better, but my eyes were already tired. When we got home, the wife, daughter, and I all layed down for a nap. I couldn't sleep, so I came to the computer, where you're reading me now. *smile*

Saturday, June 3

I don't really have much to say. Today has been pretty uneventful, for the most part. We got some trashed burned and some TV watched. That and I took a shower. Later, after my face-skin is dry, I'll shave.

As far as I know the plan is still to meet some friends in Springfield tomorrow. Unfortunately, we only know what time, but don't know where. We've sent emails, but have as yet to get answers.

The pool is looking MUCH better since I scrubbed the bottom yesterday afternoon, and added a little algaecide and clarifier. I'll probably vacuum it Monday or Tuesday, depending on if we go shopping Monday or not. If we do, then I'll do it on Tuesday.

The boy's ear was still bothering him a little last night before bedtime, so my wife peroxided it again (it didn't foam NEARLY as much as it did a couple of days ago) and put some pain-reliever drops in it. His ear is not hot or red, just a little painful, which the peroxide is making sure is clean and the drops are stopping the pain. We're pretty sure he's on the mend, but if it's still bothering him next week, we'll think about taking him to the doctor. Although, last time we took him in for his ear, he gave us some drops and a prescription for Zyrtec (I think). So, I believe what we're doing is what he needs.

A couple more chicks have hatched. We can see a couple of them peaking out from under mamma if we're quick. Don't even know how many there are under her, but we do know there were 9 eggs under her.

Rain saw Trippy, one of our cats laying with his butt on the shelf above the main shelf and took this picture

Friday, June 2

What an exciting last couple of days! Although the friends that were going to visit on Sunday weren't able to make it, we did get to meet some new friends yesterday. We talked a lot and have pretty much the same feelings about the things that matter to us (politics, religion, kids), and that always makes for good times :-) They were SO nice, and even gave me a good health tip to purge some of the toxins from my body. You combine 1 pound of sea salt with 1 pound of baking soda, put them in a tub full of water, and soak for 10 minutes (not more than 15 max) 2-3 times a week. If you've done it right and you indeed have toxins in your body, you'll be able to see the water change colors from the leached toxins. So, once we're able to afford to try that, I'm going to. Then we'll see if that helps me feel any better. For more information about some other alternative medicine things, just check out what Robert is a big part of.

Woke up at some point last night and went to the restroom, and then for some reason I turned on the kitchen light sat on the livingroom sofa. Apparently I dozed off, because I remember my 10 y.o. son coming out and sitting on the arm of the sofa next to me. He told me, after I opened my eyes (which wasn't long after he got there) that his ear was still hurting. Well, being 3 o'clock in the morning, I had no idea what to do. So I asked him if he would like to go back to bed, thinking that if he could sleep for a few hours until I got back up a 7, we could deal with it then. Well, apparently he couldn't sleep, and was back up with Rain at 4 am. She peroxided his ear, gave him some pain reliever, and put some ear drops in his ear, and stayed up with him until 5:5 a.m. When I got up this morning, there was a note on the computer that said to have him take a warm bath and soak his ear(s) in some warm water. Okay, so my daughter told me what the note said before I saw it, but it was there :-) I had planned on feeding the chickens and then laying back down until 9:30 or 10. He was sound asleep on the sofa. I figured when he woke-up I would have him take a bath. But he didn't wake-up until around 10:30, and that's when Rain came out of the bedroom. He saw her and said that his ear was feeling MUCH better. YAY! :-) We're thinking he probably had swimmer's ear like he did last summer, and we took care of it the same way. If it's anything like last year, this will be the only time we worry about it.

Speaking of the swimming pool, if you remember, I told you I started to vacuum it over the weekend, but couldn't see the bottom well enough to tell where I had ran the brush over, so I just added some clarifier and algaecide. That definitely cleared it up, but unfortunately I could see some algae on the bottom and walls. Because I need to add more water before I vacuum again, today I just scooped crap (bugs & leaves) off the bottom. After that I scrubbed the entire pool, which loosened everything, and turned the water cloudy again, plus added a pale green color to it. Yuck! Just a little while ago I added some more clarifier and it's now circulating and filtering the water. If/when it's clear tomorrow, and the weather is nice and sunny enough, I'll add water and vacuum it. Then add some algaecide and clarifier again. Then hopefully we'll have a nice and clean pool once again :-)

Earlier today we went into town to pick up a prescription for me, and a couple more lottery tickets. Went to Dairy Queen and got us all a "Monster Cookie Blizzard" - delicious! :-) We made a deal with the kids and ourselves last night that we would skip two trips to McDonalds so we could get the blizzards. Although, we had $8 dollars left after DQ, so we swung by Mickey's and got 4 double cheeseburgers and 4 small fries, to go. We already had drinks (water) with us.

Yesterday was my dad's 71st birthday. I called and wished him a happy day and chatted for a few minutes while mom walked their dog. While I was talking to him I had to go to the bathroom, so I handed the phone to Rain while I went. When I got the phone back, my dad had turned into my mother, so I talked to her for a little bit. While I was talking to my dad though, he told me that my aunt in Colorado had been admitted to the hospital and they found that her cancer had took a turn for the worse. If she gets well enough to be released from the hospital, she'll most likely go directly to a nursing home. I know that she had been on oxygen for several years because of emphysema, and now this. She's had a rough decade! I was never all that close to her emotionally, but I do like her and am keeping her in my thoughts. Back to my mother... she's been put BACK on the medicine that she HAD been on a while back, before her Georgia doctors kept trying her on "new" stuff that never worked very well. Now that she's back in Colorado, and on the old medicine that worked, dad says he thinks she's doing much better. Why can't doctors just keep you on what WORKS? *sigh* And he (my dad) told me they're starting to acclimate to the higher altitude as well. They were in Georgia, and are now in Gunnison Colorado (since mid-April).

The Dallas Maverics beat the Phoenix Suns in game 5 of the series last night, so nows there's going to be a game 6 and hopefully a game 7 (if the Suns win #6). I still like both teams, but kinda-sorta want to see the Suns win the series. Then they'll either play the Detroit Pistons or the Miami Heat in the championship series on June 8th. I'm hoping the Pistons win the series against the Heat and play the Suns in the championship. The Piston-Heat game is on tonight. Woo-Hoo! :-) GO PISTONS!

I am SO sick of hearing/seeing the television commercials for high-speed Internet, because we can't have it :-( I guess that's the price (for some of us) of living in the boondocks. *sigh* Then again, I pretty much REALLY dislike ALL commercials because NOTHING is as advertised, at least in our experience.

Thursday, June 1

We were pretty disappointed that our friends we haven't seen for almost a year couldn't make the visit yesterday. But we survived, although it was hard. The good news though is that we will be meeting them 45 minutes from here on Sunday. Also, daughter got to talk with friend's daughter on the phone, something she was very happy about getting to do. Her friend said that she had tried to call but that we didn't answer the phone. Well, we think she must've been dialing the wrong number, because our phone never rang. Besides, we have an answering machine that would've picked up if say, we were outside. That's all moot now though, since they got to talk :-)

That was pretty much our whole day. The kids swam for a while, and me and the wife pretty much just hung around inside consoling ourselves. Telling ourselves that we WILL get this house sold sooner or later. It's just seems to be taking SO long. We've had it on the market since last August. I will say though that we've had quite a bit more interest this summer, since switching to Murney Realty. Unfortunately nobody has like it well enough to buy it. We do love this house and it's very comfortable. However, it's not close enough to the only real friends we've met in Missouri since we moved to this state in 2000. Sad but true. We're just not good at making new friends, especially when the neighbors don't seem to want to get to know us for some reason.

It's not sunny today at all. That doesn't make for very cheerful weather, does it? Not sure what our plans are to stay busy today. Got one more load of laundry to put away. It's in the dryer and it's ready. The dishwasher is running, so that'll eventually need to be emptied. The kitchen and bathroom trash cans aren't full yet, so those won't need to be taken out today. My wife is paying the bills as we speak. The reason she does that instead of me is because it depresses me horribly. Which is why she started doing it in the first place. It does depress her too, once she sees the amount we have left for the month, but she handles it MUCH better than I.